The subject matter herein relates generally to electrical conductors and methods of manufacturing electrical conductors.
Electrical conductors have many forms, such as a contact, a terminal, a spring contact, a pin, a socket, an eye-of-needle pin, a micro-action pin, a compliant pin, a wire, a cable braid, a trace, a pad and the like. Such electrical conductors are used in many different types of products or devices, including electrical connectors, cables, printed circuit boards, and the like. The metals used in the electrical conductors are susceptible to corrosion, diffusion or other reactions, limiting their use or requiring protective coatings. For example, when copper or copper alloy electrical conductors are used, such conductors are susceptible to corrosion. A gold layer is typically applied to the copper as a corrosion inhibitor. However, the gold and copper materials suffer from diffusion and typically a diffusion barrier, such as nickel is deposited between the copper and gold layers.
Corrosion of base metals is detrimental to the conductor interface and signal integrity. Current plating methods used to mitigate corrosion often leave a porous surface, resulting in oxidation and corrosion of the underlying surface. Additionally, some layered structures suffer from problems associated with friction, stiction and other contact forces, limiting application of the conductors.
Some known conductors use graphene or other carbon based structures as barriers for the conductors. However, application of the graphene to the conductors is problematic. One known method of applying graphene to the conductor includes depositing the graphene in a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process. However, such processes use very high temperatures. Subjecting the conductor to such high temperatures may be damaging to the conductor. For example, typical conductors use copper alloys having melting point temperatures that are below the temperatures desired for the CVD process. Subjecting such conductors to the CVD process will cause grain boundaries, triple points and other problems with the conductors.
A need remains for an electrical conductor that addresses the aforementioned problems and other shortcomings associated with traditional electrical conductors.